Choices and Consequences
by Kedi
Summary: AU - The fairytale heroes decided to fight the Evil Queen before she had the chance to enact the curse. Short and sad Red Cricket.


**Choices and Consequences**

by Kedi

-.:.-.:.-.:.-.:.-.:.-

**Disclaimer: **Repeat the mantra with me, folks: no copyright infringement intended, no money made, no lawyers. (Please.) I'm just playing with the wonderful characters, and will put them back afterwards only slightly worse for wear.

**Author's note: **Big thanks to the lovely Shahrezad1 for beta and encouragement. :D

**T **(More than one character death, but nothing too graphic)

-.:.-.:.-.:.-.:.-.:.-

The smoke hung thick over the battlefield as Red Riding Hood wiped blood from her eyes, swaying on her feet. They had won. Good had triumphed over Evil. But there was no cheering. Sobbing and keening from the living, moaning from the dying; a cacophony of terrible sounds could be heard all around her, and she felt disoriented and disconnected. Both sides had taken heavy losses, but the Evil Queen was finally defeated, once and for all. Not even magic could bring back the dead.

But Red couldn't help but wonder if it really had been worth it: surely whatever spell the Evil Queen had threatened to cast to take away all their happy endings could not have been worse than this. And with that thought Red's knees buckled and she fell to the blood-soaked ground. She was so tired. She knew her wounds were not life-threatening, but the thought of surviving, to have to live on when they had all lost so much - so many - filled her with despair. She just lay there on the ground, eyes open but not really seeing the carnage around her, trying to concentrate on breathing lest the heavy despair should suffocate her.

A weak chirp turned her focus outwards again, and amidst the brown dirt and red blood she could see a spot of green. She slowly reached out and gently scooped it into her hand, bringing it closer to her. _Jiminy._ What was he even doing here? He had been adamant that fighting was not the way, telling them that giving into their dark side never accomplishes anything, but the War Council had been frightened enough to side with James – who had been understandably desperate to protect his wife and unborn child. Red had voted with Jiminy, but had fought alongside the others without protest when the decision had been made to attack the Evil Queen and her followers. Apparently Jiminy had done so too, to the best of his ability. A sob escaped her as she took in the damage to his frail little form. She had seen her dear friend survive things no ordinary cricket would have, but this, apparently, was too much even for a magical cricket.

With a start a memory of long ago came back to her, as clear as if it had just happened, of a warm hearth at the end of a long, cold day, when everybody but the two of them had retired for the night. She had been in a pensive mood, thinking of Peter, and Jiminy had sensed without her saying a word – like he always did – that she needed a distraction. So he had told her a story very few knew. His story: A story of a man who took too long to do the right thing, and how his cowardice had hurt good people; how he had become a cricket to escape his old life and try to make amends; how the Blue Fairy had told him that he would live as many years as it took for him to make it right. He had admitted he didn't quite know what that entailed; maybe he would turn back into a human on that day and could continue on with his life as a free man, or maybe he would remain a cricket and simply die. He had, after all, had a long life, no matter how you looked at it.

Or maybe, he had added, almost too softly for her to hear, maybe he would spend the rest of eternity as an immortal cricket, because surely his debt to Gepetto could never really be repaid.

Red had seen Gepetto earlier, kind old eyes open and empty, blood pooling around his fallen form.

She gently cupped her hands around Jiminy, careful not to jostle him too much. He had obviously not turned back into a man, nor had he simply died. But it seemed that the magic that protected him had died with Gepetto. And a cricket not protected by magic could not last long on a battlefield like this.

"Jiminy," she whispered. "Jiminy, can you hear me?"

Tears rolled down her face as another weak chirp was the only reply. His magical little megaphone was damaged. His voice, that warm, soft voice that so many times in the past had soothed her, was gone.

Another weak chirp, and then silence. Despite the wailing and sobbing all around her, Red felt suffocated by the silence from the dead cricket in her hands. Gently cradling the still form close to her heart, she cried.

A warm burst of magic surprised her enough to momentarily stop her crying. Faint blue light shone from between her fingers, and she hastily placed her dear friend's broken body on the ground and scrambled back. The blue light turned impossibly bright, and she had to raise an arm to shield her eyes.

When the light faded a bespectacled ginger-haired man lay by her feet. She blinked several times, and not just because of the bright after-images dancing across her vision; the man in front of her was not how she had imagined Jiminy – and she had done her share of imagining since that night by the hearth. But somehow... somehow this was right. This was more right than any of the incarnations she had imagined. Now he looked as kind as his voice sounded. But surely this was a dream? Breath caught in her throat Red hesitantly reached out to touch his cheek. No, it was real! _He_ was real! Soft human flesh under her shaking hand. Happiness flared in her heart for the briefest of moments, before it fled as fast as it had come. He didn't stir. He was injured! She gently put her hand on his chest.

No.

The realisation broke her heart. No, he was not injured.

He was dead.

He was a man again, but he was still dead.

Denial and despondency battled for supremacy in her chest as she pressed her lips to his, a desperate last-ditch effort, pouring all her love and sadness and remaining shards of hope into the kiss. But there was no gasp of breath, his heart did not start beating, his eyes did not open. Not even magic could bring back the dead.

Clinging to him she buried her face in his shirt and cried for all the things that would never come to be.

-.:.-.:.-.:.-.:.-.:.-

**Author's note: **Sorry! *dodges rotten tomatoes* I can't help it, every now and then I need a little angst! And I'm sorry, Shahrezad1, I tried to give you a sort of Beauty and the Beast kind of ending like you hoped for, but the story would have none of it! But I left the kiss in, because of Red Cricket reasons. :P


End file.
